2009 MotoGP – Jerez Photos

May 3, 2009

Valentino Rossi scores his first win of 2009 and the 98th of his Grand Prix career in front of 123,000 Spanish fans at the MotoGP Jerez round. Look at the pics then read the MotoGP Jerez Results report.

It was good to see Marco Melandri making a solid showing as the only Kawasaki rider in the paddock. Kawasaki pulled out of the Championship this year, but lack of factory support didn't stop Melandri from taking 5th in Jerez on last year's machine.

The RizLa 'paper control' ostensible enforce the quality of tobacco rolling papers used at the races. Seeing the good work they did in Jerez has made us advocates of their cause.

RizLa Suzuki Enforces everything but a speed limit.

Vermeulen had an impressive start off the line but was hit by a couple of riders in the first corner, droping to 14th. The Australian fought is way back to 10th by the end if the race in Jerez.

Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen looking into the distance and appearing indifferent, a modeling move he learned from the umbrella girl. If he can just master the MySpace plump-lips thing he won't need to race for a living anymore.

Lorenzo's Jerez race was solid... Until a disastrous low-side with 4 to go that is.

Nicky Hayden (Marlboro Ducati), 15th: 'In the beginning I struggled a lot again with a full fuel load and I made a mistake on the first lap – I was trying to make some positions up and I actually lost some. I tried to recover but something was wrong with the set-up of the bike. I can’t make the harder compound work well with my bike and I have to go with the softer one but today even those didn’t start to work well until I got a lot of heat into them.'

Hyate Racing's Marco Melandri is moving up in the field. The Italian opened the season in 14th at Qatar, took a solid 6th in Motegi, and wrapped-up in fifth at Jerez. That makes for a better start to the season than he had on the factory Ducati team last year.

The third season of the MotoGP Rookies Cup kicked off at Jerez, with Norway's Sturla FagerHaug edging out South Africa's Mathew Scholtz for the win in Race 1.

Colin Edwards scored decent points at Jerez but that first MotoGP win looks far off now with the Tech 3 Yamaha - Jerez

Danny Kent would eventually pass Fagerhaug for the win in Race 2 of the Rookies Cup in Jerez.

Race 1 of the Rookies Cup was red-flagged after British rider Harry Stafford fell and was struck by Florian Marino's front wheel. Stafford was taken to a hospital in a coma, but has since recovered.

American Jake Gagne earned 11th place on Saturday and ninth on Sunday.

Will Nick the Quick solve the Desmosedici riddle? - Jerez

Nicky Hayden continues to struggle aboard the Ducati - Jerez

Pedrosa was the hometown hero at Jerez. The Spaniard won last years round and showed his competitiveness at Honda's test track in Motegi, taking third. Honda went as far as to claim official responsibility if Pedrosa did not do well at Jerez.

Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda), 4th: 'I made a good start and when Dovizioso overtook me I remained concentrated to try and keep my position. After a few laps he made a mistake and I got back into fifth place. Then at the end I finished in fourth place.'

Alex de Angelis had a bout of flu coming into Jerez. Getting stuck behind Toseland for the whole race couldn't of helped him feel any better. He finished a disappointing 14th.

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda), 8th: 'On the eighth lap while I was in fifth position I lost the rear entering turn eight and I almost crashed. Fortunately I was able to rejoin the race and started to climb back up from 16th to eighth position. I wasn’t as fast as I wanted today because we’re still not at 100 per cent with the set-up of the bike.'

Andrea Dovizioso was overtaken by his teammate Dani Pedrosa in the standing after loosing rear end grip in turn eight and crashing in the gravel pit. He said of the Honda set-up, 'We need to do better because we didn't use the full potential of our package here.'

Dani Pedrosa got out front with a good start, but the consummate predator Valentino Rossi had the means to stalk him down.

This is the easy part of racing for Randy de Puniet and the Playboy sponsored HRC Honda team. Improving on the 10th and 11th-place finishes in the last two races would be the hard part.

James Toseland was the persistent thorn in De Angelis side. With a bike set-up that was unable to beat the lap times of the rider's ahead he settled on outmaneuvering and blocking Alex to hold 13th for the day.

Respol Honda's Dani Pedrosa (3) to the lead off the start, trailed closely by Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner (27) and the Fiat Yamaha duo of Jorge Lorenzo (99) and Valentino Rossi (46).

The diminutive Dani Pedrosa took an outstanding second on a Honda that has been riddled with set-up issues this season. The Spaniard might get used to looking down at people yet.

The middle section of the race saw Rossi making little headway into Pedrosa's lead, but at two-thirds distance he suddenly found a new rhythm and started shaving tenths off the gap.

Aoyama won a stunning 250 victory, defeating local favorite Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia) at the final corner, after repeatedly swapping positions.

Zip that crash suit back-up Randy, the playboy bunny is showing enough skin for the two of you.

Toni Elias finished and ninth Jerez and took some positive away, saying, 'We were two seconds off the pace in Qatar, one and a half seconds off in Motegi and one second off here. The target for Le Mans is to reduce it to less than a second. I hope we can do it.'

Honda's Hiroshi Aoyama keeping out of the hot Spanish sun before the 250 Grand Prix.

An overnight set-up change led Rossi to be the fastest in warm-up.

Lorenzo, the points leader coming into Jerez, was showing some pluck before the race. However, the real test of a Champion lies in how one reacts to a loss.

Valentino Rossi after the win in Jerez - the very definition of Monster Energy.

A good old-fashion Rossi grope-a-thon is how the Yamaha team likes to finish out the day.

Starting from fourth on the grid, Rossi held his position at the start and managed to pass Lorenzo on the final turn of the second lap.

Once Rossi passed Pedrosa he was gone for good.

Jorge Lorenzo spent most of the race in a lonely fourth position but was not about to let a podium finish slip away in his home Grand Prix. By riding slightly outside of his comfort zone he managed to shave Casey Stoner's lead down to half a second with four laps to go, but lost the front end and went down. A damaged throttle meant the end of his race.

Pedrosa now moves into a third-place tie with Lorenzo in the points standings. Rossi seems to be more fond of the Honda rider than his own teammate.

Its only the first win of the season for Rossi, but compared to last year the reigning Champ is ahead of schedule.

Rossi gets another taste of Spanish wine as Pedrosa takes his second consequitive podium.

Stoner: You have one the battle, but not the war.
Rossi: If it is a war you want ... then a war you will get!

Rossi gave the throng of fans at Jerez what they wanted to see with an impressive victory.

Rossi clinches the win in Spain. Up next is the Le Mans Grand Prix of France, where the Italian also won last year. He is hoping the changes made on the bike at Jerez will help for the rest of the season.

Valentino Rossi scored his 98th career Grand Prix triumph with a win at Jerez.

Now that Valentino has a race win and the points lead, can the rest keep up for 2009? - Jerez

It was a beautiful day for a race in Jerez and the festive Spanish crowd flocked were treated to an exciting battle between two of their favorite riders, the native Dani Pedrosa and charismatic Valentino Rossi.

A great high-speed chess game ensued for the win, with the Italian and Spaniard swapping the lead before Rossi finally clinched the deed with 10 laps to go.

The Spanish fans are loyal to anyone who can put on a show.

Capirossi had to change his rear tire as he lined up to start the race and it took him a couple of laps to get it up to temperature. In 9th on lap 3 he was able to battle his way back up to finish 6th.

Following the victory Rossi made a stop at a portable toilet, repeating a stunt that he preformed before at Jerez, remarking later, 'It’s great to win again and especially here in Jerez, which I love. It’s ten years since I made the joke with the toilet here and so I thought it would be funny to do it again if I won – I liked that a lot!'

Dani Pedrosa held the lead for the first half of the Jerez race, but the Spaniard was unable to repeat his 2008 victory for the home crowd.

Judging by the tans on these Spanish girls they most likely forgot their umbrellas last time they went to the beach.

I am sure this outfit is about as hot to wear as it looks.

God bless whoever waxed the mirror finish on that trailer.

Jorge Lorenzo: 'Fourth position wouldn’t have been so bad but when you’re in front of your fans, at home with so much adrenalin on the bike of course you try to do the maximum. I could see that the podium was possible and maybe the right thing would have been to go more gently and not push so hard in that moment, but I always want to do my best.'

Casey Stoner: 'It was just getting to the point where I was going to have to back off because I was risking a crash, but Jorge solved that problem for me! I couldn’t believe my luck but I think we deserved it though because the whole team has worked incredibly hard all weekend and I could not have given more in the race. It is only third place but it feels even better than the win in Qatar.'

Valentino Rossi: 'The race was long and quite hard – I lost some time getting past Lorenzo at the start and then I had a good battle with Stoner, which I enjoyed. After that I wasn’t so fast and I couldn’t close the gap to Pedrosa for a while; he was very quick but finally things improved and I was able to catch and pass him.'

The 250 MotoGP race took place before the main event and was a tight race between Honda's Hiroshi Aoyama, the two Spainish Aprilia riders Alvaro Bautista and Hector Barbera and the World Champ Marco Simoncelli (seen here leading the pack).

Starting from fourth on the grid, Rossi held his position at the start and managed to pass Lorenzo on the final turn of the second lap.

On lap 4 Rossi set the fastest lap of the race and caught-up with Stoner. They exchanged a couple of entertaining passes and he then he was on hunt for Pedrosa in the lead.

Stoner's third-place podium was his best Jerez finish.

Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner got an ideal start from third on the grid, chasing early leader and home favorite Dani Pedrosa over the opening five laps before conceding a position to Valentino Rossi.

Casey Stoner's best previous finish at Jerez was fifth, with 11th last season, so a third-place podium was like a win for the Australian.

It was a difficult day for Nicky Hayden, who stuggled to find a good set-up on the Jerez Circuit. He battled to a single point in 15th place.

Casey Stoner (Ducati), 3rd: 'Today I wasn’t nervous about the race at all because to be honest I went into it thinking that I didn’t have a chance of finishing on the podium. We knew Dani, Valentino and Jorge all had a better pace than us so we took a bit of a gamble with the setting to try and find an extra edge and it paid off, so I have to thank the team for that.'

American Nicky Hayden was having a hard time getting his Ducati set-up to the new Bridgestone tires.

Casey Stoner (Ducati), 3rd: 'When Jorge started to close in I honestly thought it was ‘game over’ but I kept pushing to try and at least take the battle to the final laps. It was just getting to the point where I was going to have to back off because I was risking a crash, but Jorge solved that problem for me!'

Stoner is now second in the points standings, 11 points behind Valentino Rossi, but 13 in front of Lorenzo and Pedrosa.